Vigils Reading – St Norbert

ANSWERING THE DEMAND OF GOD’S TRINITY AND UNITY

From the writing of Hadewijh3 ◊◊◊

The most sublime life and the most rapid growth lie in dying away and wasting away in the pain of Love… the great debt-payment of which is being demanded every hour-that Love demands of Love… By the demand of the Father’s omnipotence, through the wisdom of the Son and the goodness of the Holy Spirit, in the Trinity, man was created. But because man did not answer the demand of the Unity, he fell. By the demand of the Trinity God’s Son was born, and to satisfy the debt to the Unity he died. By the demand of the Trinity he rose again among men; and to satisfy the debt to the Unity he ascended to his Father.

So it is also with us. When payment of the debt we owe is demanded of us by the Trinity, grace is given us to live worthily according to the noble Trinity, as is fitting. But if, because our will is estranged, we thwart this and fall back from this unity into our own self-complacency, we no longer grow and no longer make progress in that perfection which was thus demanded of us from the beginning by the Unity and the Trinity. But if rational man’s noble reason would recognize its just debt and follow Love’s leading into her land—that is, follow Love according to her due then he would be capable of attaining that great object and being enriched in God with divine riches…

There are three things through which one lives for Love, here with the Trinity and, in the beyond, in the Unity. First, here, one desires Love under the guidance of reason, and one desires to content her with all just works of perfection, and to be perfect and worthy of all perfection. In this manner one lives the Son of God. Second, at all hours one wills in this way the will of Love with new ardor, and exercises all the virtues with overflowing desire, and enlightens all creatures according to what they are and according to the due of the nobility he recognizes in them, be it in nobility or in lowness; so shall we, for the honor of love, do the pure will of our God in our works and love. In this manner one lives the Holy Spirit.

Third, one is held by sweet constraint to be in perpetual exertion; and with never-conquered power to be a match for this Being; and strong and unconquered and joyful – by ardent striving to grow up as <the> loved one in the Beloved in every respect: to work with his hands; to walk with his feet; to hear with his ears where the voice of the Godhead never ceases to speak through the mouth of the Beloved, in all truth of counsel, of justice, of sweet sweetness, of consolation for everyone according to each person’s need, and of caution against sin; to appear like the Beloved, unadorned and without beauty live for no one else but for the Beloved in love alone, live in him as the loved one in the Beloved, with the same way of acting, with one spirit, and with one heart; and in one another to taste the unheard-of sweetness he merited by his sufferings. Oh yes! To feel heart in heart, with one single heart and one single sweet love and continually have fruition of one full-grown love. And lastly, that one must ever know certainly, without any doubt, that one is wholly in the Unity of Love. In this state one is the Father.

Thus one pays off here on earth the debt that the Trinity demands, and that it has always demanded of the Unity from all eternity